RAWALPINDI: The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) has busted a gang drug peddlers involved in smuggling of drugs abroad through Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft, top ANF officials said Friday.
The ANF rounded up nine PIA employees from Karachi and one from Lahore, said ANF DG Major General Musarrat Nawaz at a press conference here.
He said the prime minister, interior minister and army chief, following Heathrow Airport incident, had directed the ANF to take the matter to its logical end.
On May 16, British authorities, during an intelligence-based operation, seized heroin “concealed in packets” from PIA flight PK-785 at Heathrow Airport in London.
Earlier, 13 crew members of PIA PK-785, who had arrived from Islamabad, were detained at the Heathrow Airport. They were kept in detention for five hours, and according to UK Border Agency (UKBA) sources, information had been received from Pakistan that there were narcotics on-board the flight.
The ANF DG said the employees involved in smuggling were low-ranked staffers of the PIA. “They would get Rs150,000-Rs200,000 for each packet of drugs, to smuggle them to foreign countries through cleaning staff.”
The suspects would stash these drugs in hidden chambers of PIA planes and smuggle it abroad.
General Nawaz said the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in busting the gang.
Responding to a question, he said that no one is a “holy cow,” adding that five ANF personnel were also being investigated in connection to the drug-smuggling racket.
The ANF DG said they would also track down the actual culprits who take these drugs further in Europe and the United States.
[…] PAKISTAN TODAY […]
Comments are closed.